The Princess Guide

“So at the end of it all, this is really only a game I can recommend if you don’t mind a typical action romp with a bit of strategy to it, and if you don’t mind the very, very repetitive nature you’ll be dealing with along the way. Some aspects of the management portions definitely remind me a bit of some older games such as the Princess Maker series, but otherwise Princess Guide ended up being rather uninteresting.”

“For fans of NISA/NIS games in general, this is a complete let-down. None of the systems work well or are even that interesting. The story is bland, the combat unnecessarily complex and unfulfilling, and the lack of conventional progression against scaling difficulty results in an experience infuriating all the way around. Nearly everything is far more complex than it needs to be, from issuing battle commands, to simply trying to know what is being equipped or what effect is has. If one had to choose between one word to describe the whole experience this would be a battle between 'frustrating' and 'disappointing.'”

“The Princess Guide feels like a mishmash of ideas that involves some creative concepts, characters with a good deal of personality and visually appealing, but the game mechanics are not properly explained, there's several examples of incoherence in the plot development and the combat is rather repetitive. Overall, this experience ends up becoming disappointing.”

“The Princess Guide could be considered a diamond in the rough... although there's a lot of rough and not many diamonds”

“The core mechanics deliver on all fronts, upgrade system is not convoluted, nor cumbersome which is great, the game looks beautiful for the genre it’s settles in, it does not try to over-deliver, nor does it under-utilise anything it brings with it. It’s hours of nonsense, that will have any fans of the JRPG genre loving this title.”

“The Princess Guide is undoubtedly exciting and fun. It's not so long, but since it has several endings, they make the gameplay interesting. I felt that something didn't seem right, because of the speed of the dialogue animations, which disturbed my concentration on the lines, and ended up skipping several dialogues and just doing the missions. However, it is a nice game, with well defined strategies and good combat features.”

“The Princess Guide presents players with four great princesses and some enjoyable storytelling but be prepared for its decent combat system to become monotonous due to the necessary grind.”

“The Princess Guide bring a poor action gameplay, despites an interesting design and nice strategic phases.”

“The pacey, stylish, and colourful action, complemented with the neat strategy elements and interesting - albeit high-energy narrative, combine to make The Princess Guide quite unlike the other JRPGs out there. ”

“The Princess Guide fails to execute on its good ideas, and the result is a game that feels like it was released before it had time to be raised properly. ”

“You’ll be playing the part of a veteran warrior whose job is to take a Princess under his wing...”

“Overall, it's an enjoyable action-focused romp, but everything feels a little scattershot. This is a game that packs in a lot but doesn't stick the landing on all that much. The Princess Guide offers up a pleasant little brawler that overcomplicates at every turn and is never truly satisfying.”

“Regardless of how simple The Princess Guide might appear, it's fun enough to enjoy. In a lot of ways, it seems like the perfect game for the Switch. Players can pick it up and have fun, change up their tactic or see what different units have to offer. The only real downside is the story, though the dialogue is often fun enough to get past it. Combine that with a fair amount of challenges, cute monsters and more and it's easy to have a blast with The Princess Guide.”

“The Princess Guide is an adorable, energetic game. It has gorgeous art and fun, well-written characters. It's just marred by grinding through messy and poorly designed combat. The AI squad-mates that are so integral to the action have terrible AI that make it impossible to consistently coordinate any of their actions. There's massive heart and care put into the narrative and visual design of The Princess Guide, but that is weighed down by how frustrating it is to play the game.”

“The Princess Guide is a game I enjoy less and less the more I play it. There is a sound structure here and some really clever ideas, but the weight of all its small issues really burden what should a fun and frivolous experience.”

“So how would I grade The Princess Guide? It gets high marks for engaging, yet somewhat predictable, story threads and having a variety of waifus, but clearly misses the mark in a few areas. For the full grade, see the report card below.”

“The Princess Guide is a loot-based action RPG with a twist that involves teaching four princesses about the ways of life. While the concept is intriguing, the game's unique teaching mechanic isn't used as much as I'd like and the campaign could also use some extra world-building to make you care more about what's actually going on within it. On the plus side, the actual dungeon crawling can be fun and even addicting once you get the right loadout going. The game just needs a little bit extra to get it over the hump.”

“Inconceivably bland.”

“When it's firing on all cylinders, The Princess Guide is a somewhat deep, satisfying action game with vibrant visuals and humorous, whimsical storytelling. Unfortunately, it's bogged down by trying to shove overengineered combat through a thick UX fog. After yet another "mission" that consists of moving on the map to intercept three enemy skirmishes to completion, a reasonable player might wonder: Is it worth $40 to praise-or-scold each Princess through a couple of hours of sword-swinging? This quirky game may meet the particular sensibilities of some, but others should probably pass on this one.”